War Rocket Ajax #103: How Sam Humphries Went From ‘Our Love Is Real’ to ‘Ultimates’

This week on War Rocket Ajax, Chris and Matt are joined by Sam Humphries, writer of Our Love Is Real and, starting soon, Ultimate ComicsUltimates alongside Jonathan Hickman. Humphries tells us how he went from the self-published sci-fi story of a man in love with a dog to writing one of Marvel's most prominent superhero titles, with a side trip to the Aztec empire along the way in Sacrifice. You can listen to the whole show right here at ComicsAlliance!War Rocket Ajax #103: Sayonara Samurai vs. Party Quetzalcoatl with Sam Humphries

(WARNING: Contains NSFW language)

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At the top of the show, Chris and Matt are joined by Hundo Club member and aspiring stand-up comedian Chad Wago for a discussion of the difficulties of coming up with jokes when you're living in the nicest place on the planet. The big reveal of art for Assassin's Creed 3 leads to a discussion of where we hope the franchise is going -- and where we hope it's not going. Plus, a new month has brought a new issue of Thrasher, so it's time once again for Big Ups To All My Skaters!

When Sam Humphries joins us, we talk about the origins of his controversial self-published project, Our Love Is Real:

The way that I arrived at the book was from being exposed on the Internet -- you know, where you learn all sorts of crazy sh** in your life -- being exposed to zoophiles, who are real people in real life who actually believe that they are romantically and sexually involved and attracted to other mammals. These are people who are like furries, but totally on a whole other level, and would actually kind of think that furries are too silly and extreme. They believe that they're an alternative lifestyle.

I don't want to comment on that one way or another, but it was a point of view that was very new to me, and was so mind-blowing that it really just set me down a path. Do you guys remember dolphinsex.org? Is this the first time anyone has asked you that question?

I saw this website back in... 2001? 2002? I can't remember, but it was before, like, blogs and Twitter and stuff, so if you had a really crazy link, you'd just send it to a couple of people over email. I feel like it made the rounds that way, but it didn't quite have the viralness that we have now. Basically, it was this GeoCities-lookin' page. It was a single webpage that had a whole domain for one webpage, and it had an animated .gif of a dolphin, and it was just text detailing this guy's memoir of how he had a passionate, romantic relationship with a dolphin somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, if I'm remembering correctly. He left out a lot of identifying details, for obvious reasons.

But he was very adamant that this was a reciprocal relationship, that this wasn't taking advantage of an animal or taking advantage of a being with lesser intelligence, it wasn't coercion or rape or anything like that, it was a consensual relationship between two of God's creatures, I guess you'd say. So not only was he very explicit about how you might go about having sex with a dolphin, let me tell you, you can never forget, but it was also that other element which I'd never considered before.

Find out how you get from that to Marvel -- or at least how Sam did it -- in this week's show!

Ralph Wiggum Comics #1: "I think that there are lots of ways that a Ralph Wiggum comic could go could go completely wrong. That character is so beloved... It would be easy to write a Ralph Wiggum comic that would be pandering, or having him say what people expect him to say, reciting catchphrases. So to hear that this comic gets the character right, but doesn't resort to repeating what the character said on the show is nice to hear."

Justice League #6: "Justice League #6 is everything that is wrong with comics today, except that the art team is consistent. The team was the same for six issues. That's the only thing they did right."

Venom #13.4: "This book is crazy. It's crazy, but in this sort of beautiful way." "It all leads to a last page that takes comics high-concept craziness to... unforseen levels."